Want to learn about good wine you can find on the cheap? We’ve created a brand new class just for you! You can still enjoy the luxury of  delicious wine on a budget – you just have to know how (and where) to look. Read on for a description of our class coming up September 12th! (Register early as this class will fill up quickly.)

Wine on a Dime

Drink like a king on a pauper’s budget. Learn about delicious values from lesser-known regions and tasty wine blends that are easy on your pocketbook, plus find out how to spot the hidden values at your local grocery stores and outlets. Your friends will think you’re a connoisseur after you learn these insider tips that only the pros know. Taste five different wines and enjoy light snacks..

Cost: $29 plus $10 materials fee

Date: September 12, 2009, 2-4 p.m.

Location: Whole Foods Market – Fremont

Instructor: David Rounds

To Register, click here: http://wp.me/pc84y-Y

If you have any questions, please call Jenny at 503-740-7292 or email jenny@pdx-wineforeveryone.com 

We’ve got so many new classes and updates to tell you about we thought the blog would be the best place to post them. Wine for Everyone is expanding, and rapidly! While we still offer our normal wine tasting/food pairing classes going on this fall and winter, we also have a couple of new classes. 

TOUR DE FRANCE DU VIN:

Bonjour! Come celebrate the famous bicycling event as well as one of the most prolific wine producing countries with the ‘Tour de France du Vin’…right here in Portland! You will be tasting wines from various regions along the race course, highlighting some of the best: Bordeaux, Alsace, Burgundy, Loire Valley, Rhone Valley and the Mediterranean coast. Of course, what could be more French than some artisan cheeses to enjoy with the wines, some regional bites and the amazing truffles from Thirst’s kitchen to pair with dessert wine to finish the class. So instead of cycling the 3500km, just sit back and join us at Thirst for a great tour of France and its wines.

When: Sunday July 26, 2009 2-4:30pm
Location: Thirst Wine Bar & Bistro- RiverPlace Esplanade
Instructor:  David Rounds
Cost: $65
To register, contact: jenny@pdx-wineforeveryone.com
Class size is limited so register early!

A brand new class offering from Wine for Everyone!

Live like a king on a pauper’s budget! In this class you’ll learn about little-known and delicious blends that are packed with flavor but easy on your pocketbook. Plus find out how to spot the hidden values at your local grocery stores and outlets. Your friends will think you’re a wine expert in tasty boutique wines – they’ll never know you picked it up for a song. Taste five wines along w/nibbles and learn from a wine consultant with 15 years industry expertise. Whether you’re a wine newbie or more experienced, you’ll walk away with secrets from an insider never before available to the public.

Cost: $29 plus $10 materials fee

This class will be held September 12, 2009 through MindGlo, a brand new company here in Oregon that will be offering an entire catalog of classes. Check them out at www.mindglo.com. (They launch in late July so parts of their website might still be under construction.)

In these troubled economic times, everyone’s tightening their belts a little. Cut back on shopping? Ok. Cut back on the grocery bill? Sure. Cut back on wine? No way! 

So in the spirit of making this whole recession thingy a little more palatable, here’s the first in a series of pairings to match the work-a-day pantry in today’s economic climate.

 

PAIRING #1 – HOTPOCKETS with either  Pievalta Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Domine or Montesecundo Toscana Rosso
 
Hotpockets, (or as I call them god pockets, because they made of the gods) can be a tricky pairing depending upon whether you want to go the delicious chicken Caesar route or the flavor nova of the supreme pizza.  Since the chicken Caesar is pretty close to godliness, I suggest the wine from Jesus’ castle (Pievalta Verdicchio dei Castelli de Jesi Domine).  The divine oak nuances complement the granulated garlic crystals of the Caesar quite well, and really sets off the implied anchovy in the sauce. If you are going with just the pepperoni version then I would suggest the meaty, spicy Lonardo Aglianico, but in the case of the resplendent supreme hotpocket version you need something with even more depth and complexity.  There’s plenty of character in the Montesecundo, with marionberries and porcini dust in spades. 

PAIRING #2 – Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup and Thomas Labaille Sancerre Tradition 
To mirror the clean, saline purity of the broth and the succulent whelming chicken nodules of the soup, I think that the purity of this Sancerre is an excellent option. With its laser-like intensity of citric fruit and salivation-inducing searing acidity…well, it’s like a proverbial cock-fight in your mouth.    

PAIRING #3 – Chef Boyardee ABC’s 123’s and mini meatballs and Valle Dell’Acate Cerasuolo di Vittoria 
Sicily is not just a pleasant setting for Godfather 2; it is a real place with wine and stuff.  I hear the Chef family recipe is from there, so no wonder it tastes so sauc-ee! The sauce is the Chef’s crown and Sicilian tomatoes are his crown jewels.  You need something with beautiful perfume, flamboyant spice, supple texture, buoyant weight to help offset the meat-ee, tast-ee  sauce.  So why not go to the source and try something from the very region where his tomatoes are born?  Ergo…a wine that displays all of those characteristics from the first DOCG region in Sicily, like Dell’Acate Cerasuolo di Vittoria.  Just don’t make it a meal, make it a Chef Boyardee extravaganza. 

(Jenny’s note. If Dave can pair actual wines with food like this, imagine what he can do with things like: Bouchon French peasant salad with duck confit and lardon over spring greens……. Hoisin and berry-glazed pork loin with Provencal-style French black lentils…..Flat iron steak slices with Basalmic & red wine reduction and Buttery pound cake with crème anglaise and crushed pistachio toffee crumbles….all of which we serve in our food and wine pairing classes. Shameless plug, sorry! Did I mention our website? www.pdx-wineforeveryone.com. Yes, I guess I did.) 

Coming up in the next blog post:  What wine do you pair with Doritos, Kraft Mac n’ Cheese and Top Ramen??!?

NOTE: Triage, a local wine distributor, carries all these wines. If you’re interested in trying one, email Dave at jenny@pdx-wineforeveryone.com and he can direct you to a local wine shop that carries it.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this site and now have accrued so much info I’ll definitely be posting more regularly! 

First off, if you’ve heard about this blog through our Facebook page or our website, we do have new classes posted now, starting Feb. 28th. Visit www.pdx-wineforeveryone.com for a detailed syllabus and more info. If you’d like, you can email me – Jenny Tallis – at jenny@pdx-wineforeveryone.com. If you know anyone else who might benefit from a  wine appreciation class in Portland, Oregon, feel free to pass this info along. 

Dave is in the Loire Valley right now on a wine tour with Triage. He texted me yesterday and said they had tasted 70 wines. Of course he’s not swallowing them or he’d be comatose, but even so, just sticking 70 wines in your mouth! He does keep scrupulous notes so he can actually recall a lot of what he’s tasted. 

Anyway, he’ll have some fun stories to tell when he gets back, as he always does.

So who hasn’t thought at one point or another that a good mixed drink might be just the thing to save a bad day.  If you are a fan of a nigroni, or a manhattan, or a martini you’ve had a version of vermouth, one of a category of wines that are aromatised. Probably as old as wine making itself, aromatised wines have had a very long history around the Mediterranean though “Vermouth” is a name claimed by the Italians, or possibly more correctly the French, in the 1700’s for a version of a German recipe which used wormwood or ‘wermut’ and other herbs added to white wine to create a medicinal tonic.  Local wines were steeped or infused with unique blends of up to 100 herbs, flowers, and botanicals (including wormwood) to help inspire hunger, settle stomachs, ease digestion, and as a panacea for a myriad of 18th century diseases.  These family recipes and their herb blends still to this day are closely held secrets, but the same basic recipe holds true whether you are tasting a
French, Italian, or a California vermouth. We use them as a mixer here, but drinking a high quality vermouth be it sweet (which have a lot of sweet orange, slight bitter notes, and a load of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and carmel notes) or dry versions (lemon, lime, more floral qualities, but with a distinctly more bitter finish) are terrific just on their own or with a little club soda and a citrus twist. Punt a Mes and Vya are my two favorite producers of really high quality vermouths.

A far more rare version of aromatised wine comes from the Piedmonte region in Italy.  It is called ‘Chinato’, and is distinguished from a vermouth by the presence of quinine (so called ‘china’ in Italian) which is the unique flavor associated with tonic water.  The most sought after Chinatos come
from the town of Barolo, where they use the much venerated wine from this village as their base wine.  The most famous and original of these comes from Cappellano of Barolo, whose grandfather was the village pharmacist and created the first Chinato.  The Cappellano Chinato is not an inexpensive  bottle, but it will last forever and may just be the most unusual and delicious thing you have ever tried.  Think of a tootsie roll completely melted in a barq’s rootbeer, then loaded with hints of orange, lime, thyme, rosemary, sage, roses and then the bittersweet note of tonic all whirred up together.  This is a wine that just tastes alive in your mouth, and will change what you think about a digestif.  Want a white version?  There is a new producer named Vergano who is now making a white
version of Chinato in the Piedmonte, called Luli.  Instead of using Barolo, he is using moscato wine as a base then blends 30 herbs and botanticals to infuse flavor.  It is less intense and a touch sweeter than more traditional Chinatos but still has incredible floral aromatics, lots of kaffir lime, peaches, kumquat, ginger, thyme flowers, basil, jasmine, and hibiscus flavors.

Just remember these ‘aromatised’ wines were created to be a health tool…so drink to your health.

WHERE TO FIND:

Cappellano Chinato – Liner and Elson – $75 ish www.linerandelson.com

Luli – Liner and Elson – $45 ish. wwwlinerandelson.com